Reporting dependent care expenses

[scharaniya]

In 2021, my wife and I contributed $10,500 to the dependent care FSA account to pay for my daughter's daycare.  My daughter goes to on-site daycare provided by my employer for which we paid 15k in 2021 (and claimed the FSA money for it).

I am filing my taxes and I see a statement that I do not understand

"We've already covered the on-site care your employer provided, so don't include that expense here.  You can include expenses for other care and off-site care paid for from a FSA or cafeteria plan"

Do I include the 15k that we paid for my daughter daycare?  Even thought it was "on-site", we paid for it

[ColeenD3]

Yes, you can include what you paid, even though the facility was at your workplace. If you paid for your daughter to attend the daycare center, then it was not provided by your employer. See the link below for more details.

Daycare

[scharaniya]

Thanks, ColeenD3.  The FSA benefits were split between my (5K) and my wife's account (5.5K).  when I enter 15k, Turbo tax is adding the 5k in my dependent care FSA and reporting the total qualified expenses as 20k (line 16 in part II of form 2441).  That is incorrect.  To correct that, I'd have to report the qualified expenses in Turbotax as 10k (then line 16 in F2441 will be 15k when turbotax add the 5k from my dependent care FSA).  It seems to me that Turbotax software is associating my employers on-site care with my dependent care FSA benefits.

In the end, this may not make any difference in final tax amount as long as the total qualified expenses exceed the 10.5k